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Friday, 13 December 2013

Flashback Friday- The Ninth

Because The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug was released today I shall share a Lord of the Rings story from my childhood.

In third grade I started attending day care after school and there you were suppose to do your homework and then play with the other kids. I would finish my homework in class and I didn't really care to play with the other kids so I spent my time reading since they had a really good selection of books. It was here that I read all of the Chronicles of Narnia, many Dickens classics, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and all of the Lord of the Rings books (including Hobbit). When I was in fifth grade or so The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring came out in theatres and on DVD and I was obsessed and watched it again and again.

None of my friends understood my obsession and a few thought the movie was boring. I had this one friend whose entire family would say 'whenever I need to take a nap I'll pop in a Lord of the Rings movie'. I never liked that comment and would get so angry inside I had potential to turn into the Hulk. Needless to say we aren't friends anymore, not because of that but sometimes I like to think it is because of that.

The main story takes place on Valentines Day in fifth grade. Because it is elementary school they have the rule where you have to bring a valentine for everyone in the class so no one is left out and my friend Sergio brought Lord of the Rings valentines. My friend Sergio is one of the most laziest people I know, and he takes pride in it, so he just grabbed a random Valentine to bring regardless of what theme is was and he didn't even write our names on it just left the 'To:' part blank and wrote his name in the 'From:' before giving them out willy nilly.

I sat at the same table as him so I knew he brought Lord of the Rings valentines and I really wanted a Legolas one. The elves are my favourite race from the series and the only elf on the Valentines was Legolas so I really wanted that one. Because they were folded in half and stickered shut so you couldn't see the picture on the inside, my friend Sergio just sort of shrugged and said 'you get what you get.' He distributed them, I opened mine, and saw I had Gandalf- don't get me wrong I love Gandalf, but I really wanted an elf and I could be a bit selfish at times so when I handed my valentines out I scoped to see who had the glorious elf valentine.

My friend Megan did.

Now she was into mythological creatures and things of that nature. Influenced from her parents, they have dragons all over their house and she spent her free time playing an online game with wizards and dragons and stuff of that nature (...or not of nature...). But she did not know Lord of the Rings, nor did she see the movie. I had tried to talk her into it because I knew she would like it, but she hadn't gotten into it yet. Bingo.

I finished passing my valentines out then grabbed my Gandalf valentine and sat next to her.

"What did you get?" I asked. She shared her valentines and then came to the Legolas valentine.

"That's my favourite character!" I said when she showed it to me.

"Really? Who did you get?" she asked. I showed her.

"This is Gandalf the Gray, he is a really powerful wizard. Really cool, but you have my favoruite character," I said. I knew she loved wizards a lot so I started making Gandlaf seem like the only wizard in the world and that she must have him. I spewed out all my knowledge on him till she began to look back and forth between the two valentines.

"He does sound cool," she said staring at my Gandalf card.

"Hey, do you want to trade?"

She looked back and forth between the two cards before nodding and switching. I had my elf valentine.

The funny thing is that once she finally saw the movie and all the other ones, she became obsessed with Legolas. As Tumblr is to Hiddleston she was to Legolas. She had his picture as her desktop wallpaper, screensaver, a shirt of him, even a life size cardboard cut out of him in her room. She didn't remember this Valentine's Day, but I do and every time I saw one of her Legolas items I would always remember this story and smile.

But what the best part is...

...I STILL HAVE THE VALENTINE!

I smooth talked my way into getting this Valentine and even lied my ass off, it was a huge win in my book and I could never see it in my heart to throw it away so I kept it all these years.